


Flaws

by amurderof



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Awkwardness, College, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Future Fic, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 20:23:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amurderof/pseuds/amurderof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek looks at him and Stiles knows what that look means now, he's totally in-the-know, he has taken total advantage of that look during the last few semesters and so he corners Derek after a pack meeting and runs a hand up Derek's arm. Derek's jaw works but he asks Stiles what the hell he thinks he's doing and Stiles kisses him, because hey, Stiles is good at kissing. He likes kissing. He’s a rock star.</p><p>After, Stiles gets dressed and kisses Derek on the mouth. Derek watches him leave and doesn't say anything, but the next morning he's at Stiles’s front door (what the hell, seriously? Like, when did Derek Hale realize that doors like, existed at all?) and wants to take Stiles to breakfast and that's when Stiles realizes he has maybe made a Poor Choice. “Uh, it’s. You thought. I’m going back to school, like, next week, dude.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flaws

**Author's Note:**

> So today fishandcustard and I were IMing, and we discussed how fandom doesn’t take advantage of how much we want pining and awkwardly romantic Derek and douchebag Stiles, with the whole trope of "Derek hasn’t been with anyone since Kate and Stiles comes back from college hot and sexy".
> 
> And then… fic…?
> 
> Thank you, my dearest fishandcustard, for letting me write this in gchat to you and for encouraging me to actually finish it. You are a peach.

Derek looks at him and Stiles knows what that look _means_ now, he's totally in-the-know, he has taken total advantage of that look during the last few semesters and so he corners Derek after a pack meeting and runs a hand up Derek's arm. Derek's jaw works but he asks Stiles what the hell he thinks he's doing and Stiles kisses him, because hey, Stiles is good at kissing. He likes kissing. He's a rock star.  
  
After, Stiles gets dressed and kisses Derek on the mouth. Derek watches him leave and doesn't say anything, but the next morning he's at Stiles's front door (What the hell, seriously? Like, when did Derek Hale realize that doors like, existed at all?) and wants to take Stiles to breakfast and that's when Stiles realizes he has maybe made a Poor Choice. "Uh, it's. You thought. I'm going back to school, like, next week, dude."  
  
And Derek's expression doesn't change, he doesn't even roll his eyes, which is totally the worst because Stiles and Erica catalogued each and every one of Derek Hale's Bitch Alpha Faces and this one's not even included because it's like, the nonexpression, it's the absence of expression and it makes Stiles want to punch it.  
  
So instead he goes to IHOP with Derek and eats too much syrup, and afterwards he blows Derek in the back of the Camaro and grins at him, and Derek looks at him like a week isn't going to be long enough to get all that Stiles is giving, which, hey, Stiles can't blame him, but seriously, they need to talk about this in a way that doesn't end in pancakes and car sex.  
  
Except they don't. They don't talk just because, and then they don't talk because they're having sex instead. Because sex is happening.  
  
**  
  
On the morning Stiles drives back to Berkeley, Derek shows up to ostensibly help him pack, which not even Scott showed up to do and not because Scott's not a good friend but because it's, like, 7am and nobody wants to be awake at 7am unless they have to be. Derek definitely doesn't have to be, but he snorts when Stiles tells him this and just grabs one of his bags, lugs it down to the Jeep. Stays there until Stiles joins him and then asks, "Can it make the drive?", insinuating that Stiles's baby is not capable of shuttling him in the way it's managed to do multiple times already, okay, not everybody can afford the overcompensation look that some people go for.  
  
Derek grabs Stiles's arm, his thumb pressing against Stiles's skin just under the hem of his sleeve, and Stiles opens his mouth to cut him off, he has a vivid imagination and he sees where this is going and it's not even satisfying to know he's right when Derek says, "I can drive you," like it's something the two of them do, like they're.  
  
"Dude, I know we. We never really talked about this, but like, friends with benefits? The concept, not the movie because it totally misrepresented the concept, but — y'know, f to the u-c-k buddies, that's what this was, you're on board with that. Tell me you're on board with that."  
  
Derek lets go of his arm and steps back, runs his hand over the canvas of the Jeep and doesn't say anything and doesn't say anything and Stiles has made it a point to yell at everybody who says Derek doesn't talk because that's such a load of BS, Derek uses sarcasm like he's not sure how to have a sincere conversation and he uses it a _lot_ , and he's gotten better at talking about stuff that's important except when it hits too close to home but hey, guy's got issues, Stiles can respect that.  
  
Except suddenly Stiles realizes that everything Derek's said to him over the last few weeks has been sarcastic, every stupid thing about the sex and Stiles's leaving has been accompanied by an eyeroll or that infuriatingly hot smirk, and past that there's been nothing. Derek hasn't said a damn thing outside of those moments, when Stiles says Derek only wants him for his six-pack and Derek huffs, says Stiles's six-pack is missing some cans. There has been zero Important Communication from Derek Hale and Stiles has a creeping suspicion he knows why. No, okay, it's more like a Sledgehammer Suspicion and Stiles is — he's pissed, he goes from uncertain to pissed off in zero point three seconds because he is the Ferrari of unattached sex and he is not. At no point was there a. You can't _hint_ at that sort of stuff, you can't.  
  
"No," is what Stiles is able to make himself say, because otherwise he's just gonna yell and he's. It is 7am and yelling is going to wake everyone in the neighborhood up and he is not going to be responsible for that, but what he can say is "No. No, you do not get to. I did not sign off on whatever the hell you've made this into in your — in your head, and I'm. I've got to drive for 6 hours today and this is not a conversation I'm having to start it off, so you're. You never _said_ anything, how the hell am I supposed to have — because you are, aren't you, this meant _something_ , you never _said anything_!"  
  
Everything's hissed out, which is almost worse than if he'd been yelling it, but Derek just stands there and lets Stiles rant and that's the problem, that is the problem point blank, Derek and his amazing ability to shut down, cut himself off from feeling anything except for apparently wanting Stiles to be his _boyfriend_ , God, Stiles could _scream_ , and instead he shoves Derek away from his Jeep, off to the side, and climbs in, and reverses out of the driveway.  
  
He's in Red Bluff when he pulls over for food, something, his stomach's starting to eat itself, and when he checks his phone there's an actual honest-to-God email from dhale@gmail.com. Stiles opens his inbox and doesn't click on it, because everything about just _looking_ at it makes him sick, makes his guts clench like he's swallowed glass or he went on the world's worst bender last night, seriously, there's no _subject_ , at least Derek could've typed in "hi". Or "sorry".  
  
In Vacaville he stops for gas and is halfway to asking the woman in line behind him at the c-store to just click on the email for him, like ripping off a bandaid, before he realizes that he's 21 years old and this is pathetic and if he's the frigging Ferrari of unattached sex then it's sure really stupid that he can't open an email from someone. The cashier has to say "next in line" enough times that by the time Stiles actually looks up at her she's _not happy_ , glaring at him from behind her thick wireframe glasses, and he passes over 5 bucks for the Snapple and peanut butter crackers and doesn't watch their hands when she counts him back change, and he throws his phone onto the passenger seat when he's back in the Jeep.  
  
 _In my head, we were dating. I liked you and you liked me and that's it._  
  
Stiles thinks somebody must've sat down with Derek and helped him type that out, Isaac maybe, or Boyd, because it's way too straightforward and mortifyingly honest for it to be something that Derek ever came up with on his own, and then he's pulling off in Fairfield and into the parking lot of the closest gas station because he's crying, and he doesn't know why and he feels like a jackass and he hates himself and Derek Hale but mostly himself.  
  
When he's done, when he feels human again, or approaching it, he turns the key in the ignition and the Jeep makes a whirring noise, an attempt to turn over. It pings unhappily and then there's nothing. Nada. Squat. Bupkis.  
  
He climbs out of the cab and just... loses it, kicks the tires and waves his arms and he feels red and hot and sweaty by the time he's done, calmed down, sinking back against the passenger door and rubbing his hands over his face.  
  
He could call his dad, but what could he do? Leave work? And Stiles is halfway to figuring out if he can buy AAA protection posthumously when he makes himself think about it: Fairfield's an hour from Berkeley, at best. With average traffic. So that's not terrible, he can make this work.  
  
He can do this without resorting to calling anyone, especially not anyone back in Beacon Hills because he is way closer to Berkeley than he is to Beacon Hills and what he needs right now is a tow truck, not someone to hug him and tell him he's not an asshole.  
  
He pays for the tow with the pack's emergency credit card, each of them have one, and he's relaxing as much as he can in the tow truck when he gets another email, also with no subject line, seriously, if Stiles didn't know better he'd think Derek's account was a spammer — wow, it'd be so easy to mark Derek's emails as spam.  
  
Stiles groans, clicks on the email.  
  
All it says is "I would've driven you," and the tow truck driver stares at Stiles when he lets out this — strangled sound, he can't help it, because Derek Hale is the worst, the absolute worst, and Stiles can't believe Derek can exist in this reality without someone punching him repeatedly in the head all the time and that. Kind of explains how Derek's life got to be as much of a car crash as it is right now, actually. Which makes Stiles pause. Hit reply and ignore the way the driver's side-eyeing him.  
  
He types out "Yeah great thanks for the offer but as you can see I have HANDLED IT" because he's not above using capslock for emphasis, and he resolutely does not keep checking his phone for a reply, except by the time they're pulling into a mechanic's near the university his phone's at 10% charge, what the hell, so if Derek _does_ ever reply Stiles has no idea because he's turned his phone off.  
  
**  
  
When he gets home it's way later than he'd wanted it to be, and there are flowers on his welcome mat, which is ridiculous. Who does that? Who the hell is emotionally stunted enough to think that flowers are the correct gesture here?  
  
Except Stiles has answered his own question, and there's even a card. There is a _card_ and Stiles is not opening it. He's thanking God that his roommate isn't home, didn't stumble upon the most awkward thing that has happened to Stiles in his life first before Stiles had a chance to run damage control. He walks into his room, dumping his crap in his closet, and then he grabs the flowers by the vase and shakes them like they've personally offended him because they _have_ , and he sets them on his desk next to his printer and glares at them from his bed, card in hand.  
  
The card's worse than the email. Opening it, he means, because Stiles knows what goes into this kind of thing. It's not going to be handwritten. It's typed, it'll be 60 characters or less and someone will have printed it out at their flower shop and that makes Stiles want to call Derek right this instant and _yell_ at him, because. _Because_.  
  
It'll say something like "I'm sorry.  <3 Derek" and Stiles isn't certain about the heartmark because he's not going to give Derek the credit needed to have netspeak in his vocabulary, but it'll be that or something equally mortifying. Or it'll be a pre-typed message, one of those _I'm sorry for your loss_ things that Stiles has a box full of in his closet from when he was a kid that he's never been able to throw away.  
  
What ends up happening is Stiles's roommate getting in, dropping his bags onto his bed and then looking from Stiles's desk to his hand and _ooohing_ , reaching for the card still clutched in Stiles's hands. Stiles yelps, twists on his bed and elbows Sergio away, Sergio who Stiles has thought for a whole semester is a cool guy and who Stiles now understands is an utter douchebag who's been keeping it under wraps, and Sergio only lets up once Stiles has torn the envelope open, opened the card and stared at the black-type-on-cream-cardstock with 1-800-Flowers emblazoned on the bottom, and something about his expression must let Sergio know that this is kind of a big deal, which it isn't, Stiles is struggling to file this even in normal deal territory, but Sergio sits on his bed and waits for Stiles to react. Which Stiles will do once the words sink in.  
  
 _I don't know what I'm doing but I want to do it with you._  
  
And. Who the hell says things like that. That's — that's romance novel quality BS, that is "I read Cosmo in my spare time". That is the stupidest thing Stiles has ever read and it makes him think about the way Derek's eyes would drift shut when Stiles kissed him and this is not the worst day of Stiles's life, Stiles isn't that naive, but he's not sure he's ever wanted to hurt something as much as he does right now.  
  
"So, girlfriend?" Sergio asks, doing this thing with his eyebrows that Stiles used to think was funny and now inspires Stiles to find an electric razor, go to town on Sergio's face. "No," Stiles says, and Sergio asks, "Boyfriend?" with the same expression because he's a cool guy, and that just. And that makes it worse. Not Sergio. Just. Boyfriend. Of everybody Stiles thought he could bang over break, Derek seemed like the one who would most dig the no-strings-attached element of winter break sex. In hindsight, Stiles is kind of an idiot, but Derek's some sort of emotionally stunted 14-year-old, so they're even.  
  
" _No_ ," Stiles says, and then he makes Sergio go to Kip's with him as a welcome back to school outing and not at all to get wasted to forget how frigging awful today has been. He forgot Sundays are karaoke, but it's cool, Sergio will sing and Stiles will get trashed and then Sergio will make sure he doesn't die and everything'll be gravy, and when Stiles is going through a Long Island iced tea a girl tells him her name, swivels on her bar stool and pushes her tits towards him with her arms, he gets distracted. From a lot of things.  
  
He texts Sergio the change in plans, apologizes for the preemptive sexile (just for a couple hours, he swears), and they're off. Clarissa's small and blonde and curvy — Stiles has a type, and he's not ashamed to admit it — and she slides a hand into the back pocket of his jeans while they're walking back to Stiles's room, which is. Yeah, Stiles likes girls who take charge, girls who know what they want, who push him around during sex and tell him where to suck. Derek was strangely hesitant all the time, careful in ways he's never been during the rest of the time Stiles has known him, and Stiles is seriously not thinking about him right now.  
  
He barely has a chance to get her shirt off before she's pushing him back onto his bed, getting his jeans open and sliding her hand around his cock. Which. Yes, full steam ahead, he is on top of this, there are condoms in his wallet in his jacket on his desk chair and he tells her this, grins back when she smiles at him. She pauses when she sees the flowers — okay, roses, they aren't flowers, they're yellow and red roses and Stiles thinks Derek has a pinterest where he plans out his perfect June wedding with lilacs and the bride in white — but goes for his wallet anyway, pulls out a condom and unwraps it as she walks back, rolls it onto his already-hard cock and then they're golden, they are golden.  
  
Honest as a gentleman, Stiles texts Sergio in an hour and a half, _free and clear_ , and Sergio texts back _youre a huge dick_ but there's a smiley face so Stiles figures they're cool. He's asleep by the time Sergio gets back, but when he wakes up for class in the morning Sergio's left a post-it on the flower vase that says STILES STILINSKI: POON HUNTER and Stiles laughs until his voice goes gurgly and he has to drag his hand across his eyes.  
  
**  
  
School is school. Stiles likes it, likes it more now that he's mostly through requirements, can take what he _wants_ to take, and by and large he's able to avoid the crappy professors and get the spicy pepper hot ones through gratuitous ratemyprofessor.com stalking, so academics are functioning at full capacity. His social life picks up, mostly because he thinks he's become kind of a slut. Like, he has been friends with Lydia for long enough to know there are issues with that word, but he's also pretty sure it's the best way to describe what he's doing. He liked sex before, he's always liked sex, sex is _great_ and it's something he's still excited to know he's good at with another person and not just his hand, but he's also become some sort of master at one-night stands and Sergio's not judging him yet but that's because Sergio's involved in a lot of clubs and isn't home most nights.  
  
A month into the semester, Stiles runs into Clarissa again at Kip's and she grins at him and he bats his eyes at her and they spend the night talking about their majors (she's having a hard time believing his planned M.A. even _exists_ , which, excuse you, folklore is totally a thing, and in Stiles's life it makes a frightening amount of sense), and he kisses her at some point and they don't have sex, but she does tell him to meet her for dinner tomorrow night, his pick, types her phone number into his cell and enters her name as "Clarissa Hot Blonde", which he respects.  
  
Class is class, and Sergio who has not been judge-y up to this point as is polite gives Stiles a thumbs-up when he finds out Stiles is going on an actual _date_ , and Stiles and Clarissa go to Barney's and stuff their faces. She's fun to talk to, likes Stiles's sense of humor and talking about chemistry (Stiles _definitely_ has a type), and they end up at her apartment, making out on an uncomfortable Ikea couch that's exactly the same couch Scott and Isaac bought for their place, only a different color. The first time Derek had sat on that piece of crap couch he'd stared at Scott and Isaac and told them he would _pay_ for a different couch and Scott had got all huffy and Isaac had demurred, and Stiles has pretty much resigned to his entire life being forever warped by the pack when his phone rings.  
  
Clarissa bites at his jaw when he pulls away, which, yes, teeth, good, except the ringtone's the one he set for Derek and Derek never calls. In the last month, Derek has sent him flowers (roses), a couple emails, one text message that Stiles _hopes_ was a group text ( _Dinner?_ ), and a someecard that Stiles suspects Erica sent. But he hasn't called.  
  
Phone calls are universally acknowledged to be— well, okay, after Stiles had beaten it into Scott's head their junior year of high school — _important_. Pretty much all of them prefer to text, and phone calls normally mean something's rampaging through Beacon Hills, or someone's dying, or Jackson's being a douchecanoe and moving to Vermont. Even though Stiles is in Berkeley, the pack still relies on him to look stuff up, use the resources available to him there, but he'll get emails, badly-veiled facebook messages. Which is why he's clambering off the couch, tripping over his socks, and grabbing his phone out of his jacket pocket. _Hungry like the Wolf_ was hilarious before he knew what Derek looked like getting fingered, and Stiles promises himself to change Derek's ringtone the instant this night is over.  
  
"What? What's up? Are you okay?" He shoots a smile at Clarissa, who sits up on the couch and adjusts her boobs in her bra. It's a good view. Stiles has to fill in the first part of what Derek's saying from context clues which is useless, because Stiles has no idea what Derek's talking about. "Wait, what? Start again, I'm distracted."  
  
Derek doesn't start again. He pauses, and Stiles shifts awkwardly and doesn't think about his erection. Then Derek says, "Are you busy?" and then, before Stiles can answer, "Am I interrupting something?"  
  
"Yes, actually," Stiles says, because he's sick of whatever game Derek's playing, even if Derek doesn't know how to play any games that aren't _this must be love because I haven't even contemplated an eventual escape plan_. Yeah, thanks, someecards, for whatever the hell that was. (Erica _has_ to have sent it.) Derek's still quiet though, waiting for Stiles to talk, so this isn't a matter of life and death. Stiles wishes he didn't know what Derek acted like when someone's life was in danger, but he does, so he can safely say this is just a social call and not worth Stiles's time just now. "I just had a date with a _gorgeous_ lady and you're keeping me from her affections, which is so not cool."  
  
He's sinkingly aware that in a couple hours' time he's going to regret being such an asshole, he can feel it, like a sixth sense. For being an asshole. So when Derek says, "A date?" Stiles is really bent out of shape that he skips the whole couple hours thing and goes _straight_ to feeling like a douche.  
  
"Yeah. So? What is it? What can the great Stiles do for you?"  
  
Clarissa laughs on the couch and Derek makes this — _noise_ , the kind of noise Derek Hale isn't supposed to make because he doesn't have a heart _to_ break, and Derek says, "Nothing," with a finality that Stiles feels in his bones.  
  
**  
  
Derek doesn't email him again, or text him, and the next time they need Stiles to be their research monkey it's Boyd who reaches out, and it's fine. Stiles is still pack. Stiles has just established his boundaries and there's seriously nothing wrong with that. He and Derek went into their fling with different expectations and yeah, it was crap that they didn't talk about them, and it blows that they were friends and now that's sort of off the table, but Stiles isn't going to be the bad guy here. He's _not_ the bad guy. Derek's the — overreaching, awkward guy who somehow never learned how to relationship, and Stiles figures part of that has to be how freaking miserable Derek's life has been, but he's not Stiles's to fix. Stiles has enough on his plate without healing Derek Hale's black soul. Which. Which isn't the point, and Stiles is sitting at his desk and trying to write his midterm for anthro, and he's only got half a page on the importance of severed heads in Celtic daily life because his stupid _brain_ keeps cycling back to the _noise_ Derek made on that freaking phone call a month ago.  
  
He finishes the paper through the sheer force of playing his Save Ferris Pandora station at unsafe levels through his headphones so he can't focus on anything but drumbeats and historical decapitation. It's his last assignment before spring break and once he's satisfied he checks it for typos, rereads his thesis five times, closes his eyes and taps command S then command P in quick succession and doesn't let himself look at it after that.  
  
He slides the stapled paper into his TA's box before high-tailing it to the Jeep and saying a quick prayer that she makes it back to Beacon Hills without crapping out on him. She starts up flawlessly, which is either great or a precursor to tragedy, and heads towards I-5.  
  
**  
  
Stiles is literally, _literally_ , thirty-eight minutes outside of Beacon Hills when his Jeep makes this odd plunking noise and starts to slow down. He gets a rush of adrenaline but there's no one else on the road, nothing to worry about, and he pulls off to the side of the highway, drops his head onto the steering wheel, bemoans his life choices.  
  
He calls the towing company in town — the first and last sign of trouble should have been and _is_ that he and the receptionist are on a first name basis — and opens the tailgate, sits on it and watches cars drive by. It's brisk outside, and he can see snow up in the mountains, but the sun's shining bright and he can catch some vitamin D, pretend to get a tan.  
  
He zones out, laying on the warming metal, so the rustle of gravel under tires catches him off guard — it's been maybe 45 minutes and no tow truck's that punctual — and his stomach falls into the soles of his feet because of course. Of freaking course. "What, did you guys get a police scanner?"  
  
Derek pauses in shutting the Camaro's door, squinting at Stiles, and something about that settles in Stiles's chest, sure, stupid enhanced werewolf vision probably doesn't help you with sun glare.  
  
Derek shuts the door and shoves his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, says, "Yeah," like it's not weird to have a police scanner. "It's Scott's turn to monitor it and someone said your license plate number."  
  
"Why the _hell_ do you — someone said my license plate number because someone's coming to pick me up!"  
  
Stiles's outrage sticks in his throat, the arm he'd thrown out to demand of the entire Shasta National Forest why he was surrounded by such weirdos flopping abortively back onto the tailgate, because Derek has this — _smile_ on his face, like Stiles said something funny, and Stiles has not come emotionally prepared for Derek Hale smiling.  
  
"So why're you here?" Stiles demands when Derek's standing with the front of his legs pressed against the tailgate, his back to the mid-afternoon sun. Stiles's mom had loved movies, cinematography, lighting, the whole shebang, and she'd whispered one night that everyone should have a chance to be backlit at least once in their lives, that it made _anyone_ look glorious. Derek just looks uncomfortable, and Stiles hates him fiercely for making Stiles's mom wrong until he realizes he's being ridiculous. That he's maybe biased.  
  
"Thought you'd like some company while you waited," Derek says, and Stiles opens his mouth, sure, because he'd choose _Derek's company_ over being alone, except he knows how Derek talks. He's done a helluva good job avoiding Derek for the past two months, but he knows when Derek's sincere, or when he's being a smarmy dick, and right now Derek really did think Stiles would like some company while he waited.  
  
Stiles is kind of tired of being an asshole.  
  
He nudges Derek's thigh with his knee, rubs his hands against his jeans to warm them up. "C'mon, take a load off. We're probably gonna be here a while." Derek blinks owlishly but sits down after Stiles knocks his knee into him again, keeps space between them like a real gentleman. Stiles huffs out a laugh even though that's not funny, that if either of them actually _is_ a gentleman it's Derek, with his frigging roses, which Stiles still doesn't know how to touch even with a ten-foot pole.  
  
They sit in silence for a couple minutes and then Derek asks him about classes, midterms, and the beginning of the semester's still heavy on Stiles's mind so he talks, spends a good five minutes explaining Celtic burial rites and the dig reports he found in the library, how he got to write a paper where the thesis was literally _nobody has any idea hooray academia!_ Derek laughs and it jars Stiles because the last time he heard Derek laugh they were lying in Derek's bed.  
  
Derek seems to sense it, notice that Stiles is off, because he goes still, his back straightening. His face goes pinched. "I need to tell you something."  
  
Stiles definitely does not want to hear it. He's going to tell Derek as much as soon as he works up to it, as soon as he can shove out how _good_ it felt to talk, to treat Derek like the last few months didn't happen, like Stiles never asked if Derek wanted to have sex with him over winter break, like Derek never kissed him instead of saying yes or no.  
  
He doesn't say anything. So Derek does.  
  
"I don't have a lot of experience with relationships. I should've made that clear."  
  
Stiles has to bite his lip because this sounds rehearsed, he's imagining the betas holding up cue cards while Derek tries to memorize them, and there's hysterical and/or horrified laughter starting in his lungs and it is so not appropriate right now. Or ever. But especially now. Holy God, this conversation is happening.  
  
He sobers immediately when he realizes that yeah, this conversation probably _should_ have happened. And didn't. So they screwed it all up. Which is another check on the Stiles is a douchebag board, apparently.  
  
"And I should've respected your feelings about all of it. And I didn't. So, sorry."  
  
Which, yeah, he should've. Stiles probably would've been less of a dick if he had, but that's not. Really the topic here. Stiles's level of dickishness in relation to Derek Hale's broken heart. He could've written a midterm paper on _that_ — his thesis wouldn't have changed. _Nobody has any idea hooray interpersonal skills!_  
  
"Thanks," is what Stiles ends up saying, and Derek deflates, relaxes back into a slouch. Stiles almost cracks a joke about whatever therapy Derek's taking _working_ , but he stops himself just before because he realizes it's incredibly likely Derek actually _is_ in therapy, and wouldn't that be a supremely awful thing to say.  
  
"I'm sorry too," he says, and Derek smiles at him with half of his mouth, and then the tow truck shows up.  
  
**  
  
(Later, after Stiles is settled back in his old bedroom and the pack's reconvened — talked about the town, caught up on classes, careers — Lydia pulls Stiles aside and tells him about Kate Argent. _No one else knows_ , she says, and as though her expression isn't warning enough, adds, _And no one else is going to know. But I thought you should._ )  
  
(Later, after Erica shows off her engagement ring and Boyd looks too damn proud and embarrassed — and Stiles yells at them for not telling him sooner, that it's not fair he was the last to know — Scott glances at Allison and she covers her grin with her hand and Scott crows out that they're pregnant, well, Allison is, there's going to be a baby, and Erica smacks Scott upside the head for stealing her thunder, you _bastard_!, and Stiles watches Derek work through the emotions, from scared to angry to proud and then back to scared because _babies_ , babies are scary.)  
  
(Later, after everyone's bunked down for the night, Stiles stalls. Doesn't leave immediately for his dad's house. Finds Derek in the library — he doesn't think he'll ever be used to the Hale house, rebuilt, functional, _painted_ — and sits down across from him and doesn't say anything. Just enjoys his company. And Derek smiles at him.)  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I didn't see anything worth a warning in this fic, but if you feel otherwise, please drop me a comment and I will warn away!


End file.
